Research Article

Combined Treatment of Hydroxytyrosol with Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecule-2 Prevents TNFα-Induced Vascular Endothelial Cell Dysfunction through NO Production with Subsequent NFκB Inactivation

Figure 2

Combined effect of HT and CORM-2 on VECs survival and apoptosis. (a) Serum-starved VECs were treated with 10 ng/mL TNFα in the presence or absence of 50 μM HT or CORM-2 or both for 24 h. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay. Data represent the mean ± SD of three different independent experiments (* ). (b) Morphological changes characteristic of apoptotic cell death were observed under the phase-contrast inverted microscope, and the total number of dead cells was counted by trypan blue exclusion. Data represent the mean ± SD of three different independent experiments * versus TNFα-treated cells. (c) Serum-starved VECs were treated with 10 ng/mL TNFα in the presence or absence of 50 μM HT or 50 μM HT plus 50 μM CORM-2 for 3 h. Cleaved caspase-3 protein expression was determined using western blotting and normalized to the amount of α-tubulin. Representative data are shown. Data are the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. * versus untreated cells.
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